


if his name bites

by LouPF



Category: Kaptein Sabeltann | Captain Sabertooth - Formoe
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Blink And You Miss It Slash, Headcanon, Implied Relationships, M/M, Serious, Swearing, and it doesn't even have a happy -happy ending, at least in the notes lmao, i wrote this at night a year ago and i do not regret it, like god so many headcanons, pinky makes an appearance towards the very end and that's it really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 10:04:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21195878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LouPF/pseuds/LouPF
Summary: The great Captain Sabertooth, king of the seven seas, afraid of nothing and no one. Except that isn’t quite true, is it?*Alternative summary: I go to the haunted house in Dyreparken Kristiansand, see that Sabeltann's worst nightmares are all the foes he has previously lost (and the Grim Lady sinking), and go absolutely feral.





	if his name bites

**Author's Note:**

> no one asked for this and i'm delivering anyway. this is in no way shape or form related to the madness that is WWW (a crossover au I'm currently working on with my friend Maggie, if y'all are (un)lucky we'll post it when it's done), though it's inspired a lot of what happens there.
> 
> in this land we raise a big middle finger to English names, and if the names do need translation, we make our own. fuck sabertooth. fuck longfinger. fuck tiny. fuck the dark lady, and especially fuck Happy Jack and Gory Gabriel. 
> 
> also - Pinky's age? hell. who knows

He’s five when he first nearly drowns, then seven when it happens again. His mother teaches him to swim in chilly mountain streams, and he knows its out of fear, and not out of love. The water is freezing, melted glacier as it is, but he has to learn, he _needs_ to be able to swim – and if the water stings, if it burns and hurts and tears, he only rubs away the tears with clenched fists.

Then it’s fitting, isn’t it, that the first time he sees the ocean he’s instantly enthralled. The endless blue beyond the reach of the masts of the great ships, dulling into gray in the horizon, topped with white and pooling in dark blue. He falls a little bit in love, then, but it’s not before he sees the first ship leave the dock he hears a voice calling.

He’s fifteen when he first escapes out onto the sea. He works as a powder monkey, helping with the food and lending a hand whenever they are too few. The first weeks are rough. He’s not used to the rolling waves beneath his feet, but after some time he finds his footing and has never felt more alive. Yet he stands on deck, wind whipping at his dark hair as he stares into the deep darkness below, and the voice calls louder.

Hard work is effective, and soon he’s a captain of his own ship. Still he uses his own name, still the ‘captain’ part is just a title. He controls his own crew, takes them across oceans and storms and terrors, brining fine cloth and spice from one land to another. At night he stands by the bow, staring at the water and the sky with an echoing sorrow in his chest, and the voice’s call rises to a shriek.

After only a year of being captain, he loses his ship and his crew to pirates. They take him prisoner, tying his hands so tightly that it tears, and tells him to clean the deck. And so, after years of hard work, he is once again nothing more than a mere _boy_. He falls asleep at night, hands tired and bleeding from rope burns, but at least the ocean is there, rocking him to sleep and offering him comfort in the lonely hours of darkness. The next day they plunder an unsuspecting village, and as he watches the pirates run around hollering and shrieking in glee and chaos, the voice becomes a roar.

Never will it be said that he doesn’t know how to make a situation better – half a year later he’s risen in the ranks, overthrown his captain, and taken the role as the ship’s leader. Still he uses his own name, but the ‘captain’ part has become less of a title and more like a _need_. He collects some gold, plunders some villages, sinks some ships – but still it isn’t enough, and the voice becomes a cacophony of thunder.

Soon he gets a new ship, and he calls her _the Grim Lady_. His crew changes over the years into someone he can trust and believe – Langemann and Benjamin and the twins are the first, and they are the last, and they are so loyal that it almost hurts. And they acquire gold, and they take lives, and they ruin others – fear is installed in every heart near to the ocean, fear of him, fear of the flag that whips in the wind, fear of the canons thundering through the air. Yet, still, the voice that called him out here does not ease.

And then, as he’s known as someone with _power_, someone with _money_, someone who _hates_, his name becomes more than feared.

It becomes wanted.

Suddenly people are after him, every ship he sees is no longer a potential victim but rather a definite foe. There are many of those – of foes, of enemies – and not all of them are ships. Through the years, during his wandering and searching and stealing, he meets people who absolutely despise him. Women, men, children, neither or all –

Maga Khan, Gorm, Miriam, the Duke of Grail – and others, and more, and _Gabriel the Gruesome._

Every single one of them burns, not because they hate him, but because they have the power to _harm _him. He’s brainwashed, he’s betrayed, his ship is lit aflame – and fine, he’s sunk more ships than the measly landlubbers can build, but what does that help when one is facing off with a _witch? _How does one defend against a vengeful spirit, a ghost from the beyond?

Their burns leave marks and scars, and though some of the scars are visible and fade the others _don’t_.

And still, throughout every single adventure, the voice shrieks, cries, growls and thunders – calling and echoing, rising and sinking, pulling, tugging, _begging _–

(it’s weird, it really is, that the itching just beneath his skin eases, somewhat, whenever his crew is near)

(whenever –)

(– he – )

(– is near.)

He no longer uses his own – his _old _– name, for it hurts to think of, it hurts to be reminded, and so he makes up something. _Sabeltann_, he says, standing before the mirror and wringing a hat in his hands, _I am Sabeltann. _He puts on the hat, forcing his expression into one of stoic calm, and without another glance back he exits the room.

(_if his name bites if his name bites if his n**ame bites then THEY CAN’T**_)

*

He’s plagued by nightmares – of the sea, of the waves, of being pulled under and further under and of drowning and dying and _drowning – _

there’s laughter, that terrible laughter, and all his gold is gone, his ship, his crew – and he’s _dying_ – worse, he’s _losing _–

he wakes up with a start every single time, beads of sweat clinging desperately to his brow, the waves crashing against the side of the ship in that soothing rhythm they always keep.

When he’s not dreaming, he has troubles sleeping. Perhaps because of the nightmares, perhaps because of something else. He tries everything – hard mattresses, soft mattresses, huge and small – blast it all, he even tries sleeping on top of his _gold_! But nothing works – and he is doomed, he is _doomed_, for if he does not sleep then he is vulnerable –

The darkness of his rooms is pressing, forcing, pushing – lurking and creeping in from the corners, and one moment he’s _sure _that Miriam’s cackles echoe through the air, the other Maga Khan is looming over his bed, and then there is definitely the flicker of a flame down the hall –

he runs away. Can’t take his own weakness, and he runs, feet and heart competing over which can pound the fiercest – he doesn’t think, only wants to get away from himself, yet…

he ends up standing by the bow, staring into the horizon and clutching the side of the ship in a grip tight enough to break bones. Every time. It all comes back to this.

The ocean, his enemy and his lover, roaring beneath him – and whenever he stands there, the world at his feet and heaven at his hands, the voices of his past tell him, in whispered tones, to _jump_.

He never does, he never dares – the ocean will greet him like a friend, he knows, and death will probably do the same – but he dares not, for his ship will surely go to waste if he fades.

(he’s alone there he’s _alone_, standing at the edge of the universe and staring at a setting sun, at a rising moon, at a setting hope and rising despair –)

Often he falls asleep there, lulled by the ocean’s eerie repetitiveness, and the next day he’s wakened by one of his crewmen. They’re worried, and they’re quiet, and they’re kind – he snaps at them, harsh and stern, that he can take care of himself. They retreat, worries soothed by his anger, bowing and apologizing for their snark.

Sometimes it is Pinky, the boy who’s growing into a man, who shakes him awake with gentle and warm hands. They’d been soft, once, like his, but after years on the sea they have become calloused and worn – like his.

“C’mon, Captain,” he says, without fail, helping him to his feet. “You should sleep.”

“You fool of a boy,” Captain Sabeltann replies, without fail, “the great Captain Sabeltann never sleeps.”

He can never turn him away, never snap at him, he can’t – not when he has hands like those, or eyes like his, or a heart that shimmery golden.

And so he goes to bed. Always, without fail. And if Pinky, who casts echoes and reflections of his captain every time he as much as _moves_, slips into bed next to him, arms looping around his torso and fingers tender over his scars, then no one can tell him off for seeking comfort.

(but still, whenever he is with Pinky, the voice – its roaring, shrieking, thundering demands – it stills. it eases into a purr, a pleased quiet sound, and sometimes –)

(– very sparse, those times, but still there –)

(– it almost offers him hope.)


End file.
